Joseph Backholm Thinks Marriage Equality will Fail because it relies on 'Emotional Manipulation'

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 6/15/2012 1:00 pm

Celebrating his success in putting Washington’s marriage equality law up to a popular referendum, Joseph Backholm of Preserve Marriage Washington and the Family Policy Institute of Washington once again appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show and told her that he is confident of winning in November because the case for same-sex marriage, he claims, doesn’t rely on logic. Instead, Blackholm said that unlike anti-gay activists, proponents of marriage equality depend on demonizing the opposition and “emotional manipulation” to win support.

Backholm: The narrative on the other side of this issue has basically been, ‘good people support redefining marriage, bad people don’t; you’re a good person, so join us.’ So a bunch of people who—generally we consider ourselves to be kind and thoughtful and ‘live and let live’ kind of people, that’s kind of the American way—and so by virtue of that people just migrate by default to where they perceive the people to be. Their narrative depends entirely upon that, so logical discussions about this subject rarely take place with those folks. But when they happen, the logic behind their argument really does tend to fall apart. It’s also because that is what they depend on so heavily, it’s why I’m supremely confident that in the long term we win this discussion because you can’t rely on emotional manipulation forever.